


Down the Rabbithole

by yalublyutebya



Series: Down The Rabbithole [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, mentions of drug abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yalublyutebya/pseuds/yalublyutebya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've been on the run for eighteen months and Sherlock knows he is losing himself in this madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbithole

They’ve been on the run - on the chase - for eighteen months. Eighteen months of running, hiding, plotting, searching, and just when it seems like Moriarty is finally within reach, everything falls apart and they’re back at square one. Over and over again. Sherlock knows he is losing himself in this madness, losing his grasp on the real world and the real life he would have been living back at Baker Street if he had not propelled himself onto this course. And what makes it worse is that he couldn’t do it alone - he had dragged John into this too.   

Sherlock knows John justifies it to himself somehow, probably the same way he did with Afghanistan, and he does what Sherlock needs him to do just like a soldier - no questions, no argument, no remorse. And somehow, he remains John Watson, untainted by the things he has seen, things he has done - all in Sherlock’s name. It makes it all that much worse. It is Sherlock now, not John, who is woken night after night by nightmares so awful the images are seared into his retinas. He doesn’t bother to hide it from John - can’t, when they have spent the last year and a half practically living on top of each other. He can’t hide anything from John anymore, not even his slow descent into the kind of madness that drove his brilliant father to suicide all those years ago.

He hears his name and he blinks through the cloud of his thoughts, looks up from where he is huddled in the room’s only chair. John is watching him worriedly and moves closer, close enough that Sherlock can see the new stitches on his neck. Today was too close. They’ve had worse, much worse, but something about today stays with him even now. John had brushed off Sherlock’s concern, dealt with his injuries quickly and efficiently, and bundled them off to this town twenty miles away - fleeing the scene of their crimes once more, and moving further away from Moriarty.

“Sherlock,” John says again, and his hand lands on Sherlock’s shoulder, tearing him back to the present with a physical jolt. His fingers shift against Sherlock’s neck - subtly checking his pulse - as he drops to a crouch in front of Sherlock. Sherlock allows the contact, unfolds his legs from the chair, submitting to John’s inquisitive gaze and gentle touch. A doctor’s touch. But those same hands had killed a man today, had wrapped around his throat and squeezed the life out of him. Those same hands keep him grounded, stop him from disappearing inside his own head - not for the first time.

Sherlock has been able to predict what the rate of his inevitable decline might have been, if John had not come with him, if he had not made a last-minute decision to tell John everything. He would have been using again within four months, five months at a push. In six more months he would have been lost, completely, utterly lost in his own mind. Dead within a year. John’s presence alone has kept the gnawing hunger for chemical release at bay (just) and prolonged his life by eight months and counting. Even John’s presence cannot complete stop Sherlock’s mind from slowly destroying him though.

It is at times like this when Sherlock is most at the mercy of the destructive nature of his own mind - when they have come so close, only to fail once more - and when the draw of the needle is almost too much to bear. He will not sleep tonight, will continue to torture himself looking for missed clues and signs, and he will be restless and uneasy for days. John tries his best to get Sherlock through these times, sometimes with success but at other times with disastrous consequences - Sherlock still has a tiny scar on his jaw from the honest-to-God fight they had had in an alleyway in Barcelona. This time, Sherlock cannot tell which way this will go - John is still at his feet, watching him quietly, and Sherlock reaches out, twines a hand in the other man’s T-shirt. He needs - he doesn’t even know what he needs - but he feels like if he loses this physical connection to John, he will spiral into one of his darker moods. If he can just keep hold of John - earthy, real, tangible John.

“You need to sleep,” John says, keeping his hand firmly on Sherlock’s shoulder as if he can read how close Sherlock is to losing it. Maybe he can. He has certainly shown an alarming comprehension of Sherlock since this began, after only a few months of cohabitation at 221b Baker Street.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything in reply because both he and John know that he will not sleep tonight. And when he does eventually succumb from sheer exhaustion, his sleep will be broken by nightmares. It’s almost routine by now.

“Are you hungry?” John asks, because that too is routine and even though they both know the answer, they both need the routine of asking and refusing.

Sherlock shakes his head and lets his head fall forward, his chin resting on his chest, his fingers still twined in John’s T-shirt.

“Come on,” John coaxes with a gentle squeeze to Sherlock’s shoulder, “At least lie down on the bed for a bit.”

Sherlock acquiesces, sliding out of the chair and onto the nearby bed, his tight grip moving to John’s wrist when it becomes impractical to continue to hang onto his T-shirt. Apparently sensing that he is not going to be released anytime soon, John settles on the bed next to Sherlock, giving the sorry looking pillow one shake before settling on it with the resignation of a soldier used to even less. He looks tired and his eyes flutter closed almost instantly. Sherlock’s grip on John’s wrist tightens almost involuntarily and John twists his hand, locks his fingers around Sherlock’s.

Sherlock has avoided touch for most of his adult life but sometimes he can’t help but need it, even as he scorns himself for such a pathetic weakness. At the beginning of this mad chase, both he and John been carefully distant, polite and oh so very British, especially when forced to share a bed, but endless brushes with death and several serious injuries and the simple fact that they only have each other have destroyed all those boundaries over time and allowed a casualness that Sherlock would once have shuddered at. But sometimes, like now, John’s touch is all that can calm him. He tightens his fingers around John’s and rests his head against John’s shoulder. John shifts sleepily, rests his cheek against Sherlock’s hair, his breath stirring the curls for a moment before he settles. He will be asleep in seconds and Sherlock counts them as he feels John’s body relax next to him.

John sleeps and Sherlock listens to his slow, even breathing, feels the rise and fall of John’s chest against his arm - uses it to keep him in the here and now. His brain is whirring, dozens of thoughts fighting for prominence, but he forces them away, focuses only on John. It is only a matter of time until he can resist no longer, but John will be awake in a few hours and he will do all he can to distract Sherlock and they’ll go on, move to the next town, chase the next lead. They’ll keep going until this is over and maybe, just maybe, they’ll still be intact once they reach the other side.     


End file.
